The Wild Harmonic Read online

  I have to address her as “Sister” on church grounds, of course, but I don’t really mind this. She is the closest thing to a real sister that I have ever had, and if I keep a familial mindset, I actually feel that it only strengthens our bond. I just have to remember to stop calling her The Penguin or tease her about her habit in front of other clergy. I am relieved that she wants to meet me in her little office on the church grounds, as I’m not certain that I want to set foot into the nearby convent.

  She is exactly where I expect her to be: in the sanctuary, practicing that fearsome pipe organ. The music could pass for Bach, and I can’t suppress a grin in spite of myself—I certainly won’t tell Father O’Flaherty that it’s really the progressive rock creation of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.

  I’ll be there! I’ll be there! I will be there …

  She turns around so suddenly that I jump. Even though I now know she’s a werewolf, this is going to take some getting used to.

  Her grin smears her freckles across her face in a cosmic pigment whirl. “I figured you’d be coming around about now.”

  I trot across the marble floor, aware of how loud my feet sounded in the bright room, even in my soft Chuck Taylors, and we embrace fiercely.

  “Sylvia …” I begin.

  She shushes me. “It’s Sister Jean-Baptiste as long as we’re in here, okay?” I give her a tight nod.

  “Come on.” She indicates the side door, leading to the yard and the huge old live oak tree, so very much like the ones on whose roots we used to play as kids. “We’ll have some privacy in my office …”

  Her private study is sparsely decorated: just a plain wooden cross and painted portraits of Saint Cecilia, Saint Clare, Saint Francis, Bob Moog, and an old photograph of Rick Wakeman live onstage with Yes in the late seventies. A laminated Steely Dan backstage pass hangs casually from a nail on the wall, and an ornate rosary hangs from another. She’s ardently studying a book entitled The Letters of Lupus of Ferrières, but puts the book down to give me her familiar tackle-hug.

  “Letters of Lupus …?” I inquire.

  “Saint Lupus of Ferrières, one of many saints named Lupus. Pull up a chair. I’ll filch some wine for us when Father O’Flaherty isn’t looking.” I can’t tell whether or not she’s teasing me, but she knows how to loosen me up.

  I shamelessly peruse her bookshelf. Assorted memoirs of missionaries reside next to the biographies of Thelonius Monk and Kate Bush. I poke and sniff around a little more, but everything still smells like the same old Sylvia. Awkwardness melts away at last. Content to commence my training, I pull up a chair next to my childhood friend, who grins sympathetically.

  “Relax, Buzz! Don’t you remember how we used to suspend our disbelief all the time back when we were kids? Playing with Ouija boards and watching horror movies!”

  A bark of laughter tears its way out of me. “Oh boy, if we only knew! So pray tell me, Sister … what does it mean to be a werewolf in a world of right and wrong?”

  Her expression sobers. “Much of what I’m about to tell you cannot be traced back to written records. It has to be documented in lycan-song, not unlike the oral tradition of the Celtic bards and the West African Griots. It is a sacred task.” She reaches across the desk and pats my hand soothingly.

  “First and most importantly,” she says gently, “let’s see what we can do about this shame you’ve been dragging around with you for all of these years. There is a term called ‘Taming the Beast Within.’ Have you heard the story of Saint Francis and the wolf?”

  I nod. “The critter was killing the animals and people of the town known as Gubbio. Seems like it had issues.” I can sense my growing discomfort, and chide myself for going into levity mode as usual when unease strikes.

  Sylvia is steadfastly patient as always. “And of course, there was another kind of shape-shifting. Remember how his prayers mentioned, ‘Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is darkness, let there be light.’ And so forth. Do you see where this transformation allegory is going?”

  My brain hurts. “No idea,” I reply.

  Sylvia takes a deep breath. “There are some who believe—by way of this aforementioned word-of-mouth tradition—that this allegory is even more cryptic and that Saint Francis was the wolf.”

  I feel myself jump, and look furtively around the tiny austere room, as if something could get us.

  “Not only that,” she continues, pretending not to notice my, “but it has been said that Saint Francis was one of many holy lycans who overcame the beast within by becoming one with it, thus gaining enlightenment through sacrifice. They came in droves to the monasteries to escape persecution and to learn how to use their condition for the highest good. It wasn’t until later that other werewolves over time gave lycans a bad name. Just as there have been corrupt police, clergy, lawyers, and politicians who have done the same for their kind, they besmirched a role that should be used to establish justice and safety.”

  “Sylvia … that’s heretical!!!”

  She cocks an eyebrow. “Any idea can be heretical if it isn’t popular enough. Many works of early art depicted manger scenes in which wolves were standing guard over the holy family. Sometimes they were portrayed howling in grief at the foot of the cross. The Church destroyed most of these works, save the few in which people were convinced that the wolves were actually dogs.”

  “As if dogs aren’t capable of atrocities, too,” I grumble.

  “Yes, but the symbolism of domesticity they exemplify gives humans the illusion of control. Now let’s discuss the ‘nature of the beast’. Wolves have been vilified in folklore for millennia. Even the word ‘beast’ has gotten a bad rap in one of our international bestsellers.” She nods her head in the direction of the Bible on her desk. “A wolf is not inherently bad, of course. It simply IS. It is the human influence on the wolf, not the other way around, that can lend itself to making our kind a monstrosity.

  “Wolves have no agendas,” she continues. I know this in my heart of hearts, but I relish hearing it from someone else. “They do not seek revenge, they kill only for food or other means of survival, and not out of anger, jealousy, or greed. They do not care for the affairs of packs in other nations, or what the world makes of their own community.” She pauses to offer me some coffee and give me a moment to let all this new knowledge soak in. I’d have taken notes, but the idea of any written records of this taboo topic makes me uneasy.

  “This is to help you get out of your old way of regarding yourself, and of what ‘Taming the Beast Within’ really is,” she tells me. “So really, it should be called ‘Taming the Human Within,’ but should this term leak out, it could potentially cause problems. But it is the human race that falls prey to greed and genocide. Fearful humans ban minority ideologies, and the dominant thought across many societies is ‘If you are not like the rest of us, you must die.’ People often fear anything that they cannot control, and so must tame it or destroy it.”

  And my lesson continues until my mind threatens to explode. I learn about lost ancient letters, destroyed sacred texts. I am given the scoop on Church reformations that reduced our lycan histories and origins to speculations and rumors, scarcely fit for late night radio and implausible television specials. It was said that lycans –in addition to many other half-human species—originated before the flood of Genesis as the result of man’s crimes against nature. Those that survived the deluge were faced with a choice: they were to either be the combination of the best of their dual natures or the worst. Those who did not choose wisely quickly died out, and the rest disguised their kind for millennia. Not until the seventeenth century or so did records resume of these man-beasts as monstrosities.

  This is about all I can take in for one day, and Sylvia pours me another cup of coffee before I head back to New Orleans. She leaves me with one final piece of advice as I walk to my car. “Just remember to use compassion as you look through this new lens of your learning. After all, humans are people too.”
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br />   Teddy’s house is tucked away in the French Quarter. It’s a very convenient place to live if you walk to most of your gigs, and complete hell if you need a parking place or a good night’s sleep. I leave my car parked uptown and catch the Tchoupitoulas bus to Canal Street, then hoof it down Dauphine.

  Even blindfolded I would have known the unmistakable sounds of the Quarter. The jingling overtones of rattling harnesses a split second before the clop of metal-shod mules’ hooves accompany the buggy tours. Sharp smacks of bottlecaps nailed to the shoes of young tapdancers in tandem with the bright claps. The distant calliope sounding from the Creole Queen steamboat on the river that is blessedly more in tune with itself than it used to be. And there are the ubiquitous tunes from myriad street performers, ranging from beloved longtime local staples to the carpetbaggers who only pass through like locusts.

  I compose a little bass riff in my head to the sound of my footsteps as I clear each cross street. St. Ann … Dumaine … St. Philip … I finally reach the front door to his typical shotgun house, and reach up to ring the bell, but he’s heard me coming and opens the door on silent hinges. The grin on his face is one of lupine hilarity as he puts a finger to his lips.

  I giggle before I even know what’s funny. “Teddy, what is it?”

  He whispers in my ear, “The Maestro got kicked out of his house a couple of nights ago by his girlfriend, and seeing how he’s been such a douchebag, none of the other musicians will take him in. Except me, since I’m such a nice guy, right? But now he won’t leave. He’s been here for two solid weeks, and I figured it would be worth it to have an audience to my Dude-riddance ploy.” He stifles his laughter with a Muttley-esque wheeze. “I’ve been patient long enough, but when I glanced at his duffel bag and saw that the dude was planning to swipe my copy of The Adventures of Lord Iffy Boatrace, I made up my mind that this means war.”

  Ah yes, The Adventures of Lord Iffy Boatrace. An out-of-print gem penned in the eighties by Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, it is nothing short of hilarious, perverted genius … and it’s one of Teddy’s most prized possessions.

  We slink into the living room where sprawled comatose on Teddy’s couch is the one and only Maestro Dude Holstein, golden hair sticking every which way like a dried-up fern, mouth open like a brain-dead frog. Opposite the luxurious furniture is Teddy’s stereo with floor-to-ceiling speakers. I watch him pop in a CD, crank the volume to eleven, and duck snickering behind the sofa like a kid who’s just lit a firecracker. The room suddenly detonates with the low growling sounds of the Tuvan group Huun-Huur-Tu throat singing at a frightening decibel level rattling the walls, and the Maestro shoots off the couch as though fired from a cannon. He charges down the stairs and out the door, his open duffel bag leaving a trail of possessions in his wake, including a dilapidated stuffed rabbit and a soiled-looking sex toy.

  “Teddy …!” I gasp, nearly asphyxiating from laughter. As I let the hilarity run its course, I pause to take in his half of the duplex. As often as I’d been to Teddy’s apartment, I’d never stayed long enough to hang out much. Now it seems like a crime that I never did. After Teddy gathers the rest of the Maestro’s things—careful to use a paper towel to pick up the adult novelty—we spend some time just catching up, reconnecting on a mundane level.

  We spend a great deal of time swapping bass lore, of course. Teddy not only plays electric, but also upright bass. He is always full of compliments about my quick ear, but he can read music notation, tablature, and even the Nashville number system. We discuss the importance of ear training versus the ability to sight-read: instinct versus reason.

  We also listen to world music—tons of it. I had heard of things like Tuvan throat singing and Sufi singing, but Teddy’s CD collection enlightens me further. I hear recordings of Swedish nyckelharpa, Balinese gamelan ensembles, West African Ewe dance drum interlocking rhythms, and the pamiri rubab of Tajikistan. He tells me a chilling story about the Greek godfather of rebetiko.

  “What’s this all about, Teddy?” I ask, holding up a CD. The lettering on the cover is in Roman characters, with strange punctuation that reminds me of French, but I know it definitely isn’t that. The instrument in the cover photo is long-necked and graceful, with strange-looking tied-on gut frets placed at odd-looking intervals. The intricate inlay makes it look too pretty to play.

  He smiles. “It’s a Turkish bağlama. You really need to hear some of this stuff. It’s perfect for an ear as fine as yours.”

  I frown a little. “It looks like a bouzouki.” There’s a chick in town who plays the Irish bouzouki—an adaptation of the Greek instrument—but I’m not all that crazy about her.

  “It’s a relative of the same family. Check this out …” He shows me some pictures of Turkish instruments in the CD booklet of the entire saz family, from the tiny cura to the mighty divan. “They tend to have seven strings clustered into three groups. Notice the soundhole isn’t in the top … it’s down by the bridge. And the irregular looking frets are laid out for a much more complicated scale than our twelve-note system. With your pitch-sensitive ear, you will appreciate all of the little microtones that make up the music.” He pops the disc into his player.

  The sound sends tingles up my spine. It’s rasping and droning, with notes bending between notes, giving the expressive sound of a human voice. I hum the drone, thinking of the infinite possibilities of creating music with more than twelve notes. The track eventually fades and I can feel myself beaming gratefully at Teddy. He reluctantly switches his stereo off, swinging his body around to face me. I recall that we have work to do, but I’m eager to train.

  “Now, for your first lesson,” he says, all business now. “You need to know about some other kinds of shape-shifters, and there are a lot of them! Technically, the term ‘shape-shifter’ refers to a wide range of people, real and mythological alike, including fae, plant people, and folks that can take on the forms of other humans. The true name for our animal-shifting kind is therianthrope, or ‘beast person.’ ‘Shifter’ is the most widely accepted word for us therianthropes, though sometimes we are referred to as ‘blended beings.’ Want to know something even cooler? We hail from nearly every land on the planet. But we lycans are the only shape-shifters who can pass along our gift through a bite. Isn’t that a relief? Otherwise, can you imagine how many weremosquitos there would be?

  “We parahumans—or people with genetic elements of both humans and animals—are as diverse as any culture, and I have a sneaking suspicion that public knowledge only scratches the surface of what’s really out there. It would take me forever to tell you about all the ones I know, and I’m still no expert. I can only give you a crash course today. Let’s begin close to home. You may have heard of our First Nation shifters, such as the Native American skin-walkers, the Central American naguals, or Inuit Iljiraat. Just a few of the blended beings across Ireland, the UK, and Faroe Islands are selkies, pookas, and kelpies. Nordic berzerkers, or literally ‘bear shirts’ also come to mind. Let’s see … the shifters from Oceania have gotten a pretty bad rap, but I’ve heard that the taniwhas of New Zealand, the atai of Melanesia, and the bunyips of Australia are making an effort to appear more benevolent these days. The Antarctic ningen are known to communicate with these neighboring shifters, but are otherwise pretty aloof. We have fellow canine shifters from other parts of the world such as jackal folk and kitsune, or Japanese foxes, which can have up to nine tails. Feline shifters hail from all over, and they’re usually tied to the cats of their native lands: jaguar people in Central and South America, werecats in Europe, and weretigers in Asia. Leopard and lion people are common in Africa as well as shifters there who become hyenas or owls. Who have I left out? Oh yes, in India we have nagas …”

  “Nagas?”

  “Snake people. They originated in India but now have infiltrated every ethnic bloodline. In some cultures they are considered to be sacred, many humans fear them, and a lot of these slippery folks have let both of these factors go to their h
eads. Some say that the snakes gave dawning consciousness to humankind, and even introduced the written word. There aren’t too many nagas who choose to reveal themselves, but you’ve probably played gigs with a few. You’ll know them by their charm and their fearlessness, sometimes to the extreme. Because of their bite, they are said to be immune to things like hepatitis-C and other blood-borne illnesses, though they may still be able to carry the disease like everyone else, including shifters that take the forms of bloodsucking animals.” I pause to let this sink in. Teddy fetches a couple of cans of NOLA beer from the fridge, discreetly giving me time to digest all this. He returns with a wolfish grin, hands me one, and I imbibe gratefully.

  “Take some time to wrap your brain around all that info. We shifters are still learning more about each other every day! Okay, there is also social stuff you need to learn. You might not believe how much protocol there is to being a werewolf, but it is a culture as well as a race, after all. First up, let’s talk about manners.” He takes another swing of his beer and releases a giant belch, causing me to laugh and ground myself.

  As then he begins to tutor me. I can’t believe all of the things I’ve been missing. I might as well be preparing for a Japanese tea ceremony with all of the decorum and subtleties.

  First and most importantly, there is the issue with eye contact. Teddy explains how breaking eye contact can mean anything from deference to signaling respect. And like true wolves, sustained eye contact is almost always a challenge for dominance. He compares this to eye contact in other cultures, which can mean anything from flirting to empathy. He talks about how exaggerated eye contact can sometimes indicate a history of occult abuse.